Area man threatens state police

Suspect being held in TVRJ

January 18, 2013

A Buckhannon man who threatened to "shoot all of the state police" after being arrested on a variety of traffic-related charges Tuesday now finds himself being held at the Central Regional Jail in lieu of a $70,000 bond.

Michael Anthony Hager, 48, of Route 1, Box 150, is facing a felony charge of terroristic threats, along with misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, battery on a police officer, assault on a police officer, destruction of property, hit and run with property damage and attempting to commit a misdemeanor. He was arraigned before Lewis County Magistrate Rob Clem.

The authorities began searching for a gray Nissan Frontier truck shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday after receiving a call about a hit-and-run incident in the parking lot of the Plantation Inn in Jane Lew. The truck was located a few minutes later, stuck in a cow pasture and spinning its wheels in an attempt to get out of the field, according to the criminal complaint in Lewis County Magistrate Court. The truck had apparently ran off the right side of the road and struck a barbed wire fence before traveling into the field.

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Hager

State trooper M.E. Clay ordered the driver to exit the vehicle, and the driver, whom the trooper identified as Hager, was observed having glassy and bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and having trouble balancing. Hager was given a series of field sobriety tests, the complaint stated, none of which Hager allegedly said he could perform.

Hager was taken to Weston for further testing, which he refused. Hager is alleged to have made the statement that he was going to physically assault the trooper and he was going to shoot him and "all of the West Virginia State Police." Hager is alleged to have grabbed the trooper's left arm in an attempt to pull him down, according to the complaint.

While in the State Police vehicle, the complaint states that Hager continued to make threats against the State Police, along with laying down in the back seat and kicking the rear passenger window, "nearly breaking it."